Ken Robinson

My goal with this book is to illuminate for you concepts that you might have sensed intuitively and to inspire you to find the Element for yourself and to help others to find it as well. What I hope you will find here is a new way of looking at your own potential and that of those around you.

To make the Element available to everyone, we need to acknowledge that each person’s intelligence is distinct from the intelligence of every other person on the planet, that everyone has a unique way of getting in the zone, and a unique way of finding the Element.

We need to create environments—in our school, in our workplaces, and in our public offices—where every person is inspired to grow creatively. We need to make sure that all people have the chance to do what they should be doing, to discover the Element in themselves and in their own way.

Being in the zone is about using your particular kind of intelligence in an optimal way.

Mental energy is not a fixed substance. It rises and falls with our passion and commitment to what we are doing at the time.

“The only way to prepare for the future is to make the most out of ourselves on the assumption that doing so will make us as flexible and productive as possible.”

As the actor Sophia Lauren one said, “There *is* a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Perhaps the most important attitude for cultivating good fortune is a strong sense of perseverance. Many of the people in this book faced considerable constraints in finding the Element and managed to do it through sheer, dogged determination.

In my experience, most people have to face internal obstacles of self-doubt and fear as much as any external obstacles of circumstance and opportunity.

The Element is about discovering yourself, and you can’t do this if you’re trapped in a compulsion to conform. You can’t be yourself in a swarm.

Finding your Element sometimes requires breaking away from your native culture in order to achieve your goals.